Central to the University of Waterloo’s mission is the creation and dissemination of knowledge. As new scholars, graduate students are expected to disclose and publicly defend their research results to ensure review from their peers and acceptance and inclusion of their findings in open scholarly discourse.
At times, graduate students may wish to protect their research results, particularly when they contain material of commercial or marketable value, or when restricted by a publication agreement. Similarly, students may require accessibility accommodations or engage in sensitive research areas which may present personal risks. These unique circumstances may result in a thesis and/or thesis defence being Held Without Public Disclosure.
The following theses have been submitted to the Faculty of Science Graduate Office and are available, unless otherwise noted, for review by any member of the University during the display period only. The display period is the time between the posting of the thesis and the examination date.
May PhD Defences
Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: José de Jesús PADUA ARGÜELLES
Title: Studying quantum gravity 𝘷𝘪𝘢 simplicial Lorentzian path integrals
Supervisor: Bianca Dittrich
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 308
Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Zheng ZHOU
Title: Studying Conformal Field Theories in Three Dimensions with the Fuzzy Sphere
Supervisor: Roger Melko and Yin-Chen He
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Kartar SINGH
Title: Cholesterol and Amyloid β Modulation of Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Signaling in Neural Cell Models
Supervisor: Mike Beazely and Zoya Leonenko
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 12:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Jinmin YI
Title: Disorder Effects in Topological Phases of Matter
Supervisor: Anton Burkov
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Tuesday, May 26, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Sayan GANGOPADHYAY
Title: Towards Indistinguishable Photon Generation from Nanowire Quantum Dots
Supervisor: Michael Reimer
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, May 28, 2026 at 11:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Adrian LOPEZ
Title: Categorical 't Hooft Expansion and Twisted Holography
Supervisor: Robert Mann and Davide Gaiotto
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 352
Friday, May 29, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Matthew DUSCHENES
Title: Effects of Noise on Optimization, Statistics, and Simulation of Quantum Systems
Supervisor: Roger Melko and Juan Carrasquilla
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: QNC 2101
June PhD Defences
Monday, June 1, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Leonardo ALMEIDA LESSA
Title: Order in the Open: Symmetries and Entanglement of Many-Body Mixed States
Supervisor: Anton Burkov and Chong Wang
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Tuesday, June 2, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Amirreza NEGARI
Title: Phases of matter in quantum information and error correction
Supervisor: Roger Melko and Timothy Hsieh
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Dejana MITROVIC
Title: Effects of Temperature and Niclosamide on the Toxicity of the Lampricide TFM (3-trifluoromethyl-4-nitrophenol) to Sea Lamprey (𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘺𝘻𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘴) and Rainbow Trout (𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘩𝘺𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘮𝘺𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴)
Supervisor: Mark Servos and Michael Wilkie
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Megan Schuyler MOSS
Title: Scaling and generalization in neural quantum states
Supervisor: Roger Melko
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 308
Friday, June 19, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Harish MURALI
Title: Huge Operators in Holography: BPS Sectors, Matrix Models, and Black Holes
Supervisor: Jaume Gomis and Pedro Vieira
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Friday, June 19, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Úna HOGAN
Title: A STUDY OF THE CLASSIFICATION AND QUANTIFICATION OF MICROPLASTICS THROUGH RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY AND MACHINE LEARNING
Supervisor: Rodney Smith
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 361
Friday, June 19, 2026 at 1:30:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Nicholas ZUTT
Title: Qudit Quantum Computation on Trapped Barium-137 Ions
Supervisor: Crystal Senko
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: PHY 352
Tuesday, June 23, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Marina MACIEL ANSANELLI
Title: Bidirectional insights between classical and quantum causal inference
Supervisor: Kevin Resch and Robert Spekkens
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Wednesday, June 24, 2026 at 2:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Cameron LAWLOR-FORSYTH
Title: Identifying and Distinguishing Quenching Galaxies with Spatially Resolved Star Formation
Supervisor: Michael Balogh
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Location/Method: EIT 2053
Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: Amir RESHADI
Title: Multi-Scale Modeling of Microplastic Fate and Transport in Urban Runoff: From Catchment-Scale Yield and Retention to a Global Predictive Framework
Supervisor: Fereidoun Reza Nezhad and Philippe Van Cappellen
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: EIT 2053
Friday, June 26, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
PhD Candidate: YiZhi YUAN
Title: Emerging Contaminants in Groundwater and Surface Water at a Mine Reclamation Site: Occurrence, Fate and Remediation
Supervisor: Carol Ptacek and
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: EIT 2053
Note: Held Without Public Disclosure
July PhD Defences
Monday, July 6, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Filip BUDIMIR
Title: Chromium Stable Isotope Fractionation During Reduction of Hexavalent Chromium by Zero-valent Iron and Biochar
Supervisor: David Blowes and Richard Amos
Department: Earth and Environmental Sciences
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Monday, July 27, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
PhD Candidate: Saikiran KHAMGAONKAR
Title: Polymer-Integrated Halide Perovskite Solar Cells and Photoelectrochemical Cells for Solar Energy Conversion
Supervisor: Vivek Maheshwari
Department: Chemistry
Location/Method: C2 361
May MSc Defences
Wednesday, May 6, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Victoria PEPE
Title: Where the Whip-poor-will will: Third and fourth order habitat selection of a migratory aerial insectivore
Supervisor: Liam McGuire
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Friday, May 8, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Prakriti CHHABRA
Title: Investigation of Skin Epithelial Innate Immune Barrier Functions using a Xenopus laevis Cell Line
Supervisor: Barb Katzenback
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
Friday, May 22, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Hanna HICKEY
Title: The role of environmental gradients in the shift of wood traits from seedling to adult trees.
Supervisor: Julie Messier and Angela Prendin
Department: Biology
Location/Method: B1 266
June MSc Defences
Monday, June 8, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Hayden EPP
Title: The Effect of Turfgrass-to-Meadow Restoration on Carbon Storage and Sequestration in an Urban Environment
Supervisor: Rebecca Rooney
Department: Biology
Location/Method: MC 4060
Monday, June 8, 2026 at 1:00:00 PM
MSc Candidate: Katelyn GAO
Title: Benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages and freshwater food webs of beaver-impounded streams in the eastern Canadian Arctic
Supervisor: Michael Power
Department: Biology
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS
Monday, June 22, 2026 at 9:30:00 AM
MSc Candidate: Saduni SUMITHRARACHCHIGE DON
Title: The Investigation of Gold Nanoparticles as Radiosensitizers to Treat Prostate Cancer in 3D In Vitro models
Supervisor: Shawn Wettig and Ernest Osei
Department: School of Pharmacy
Location/Method: Remote via MS TEAMS